Sonics to end partnership with KJR

Published 10:00 pm, Tuesday, January 24, 2006

PHOENIX -- The Sonics announced Tuesday night that they have ended their 21-year partnership with KJR-950 radio and will broadcast their games on KTTH-770 beginning next season.

Perhaps the biggest change will occur on the broadcast team, as longtime play-by-play man Kevin Calabro will handle telecasts on FSN and will call radio games only on radio-only broadcasts.

The Sonics will hire another broadcast team to handle radio responsibilities when games are on FSN. FSN is telecasting 72 of the team's 81 games this season and the games are broadcast on radio and television simultaneously, a rarity for professional sports teams.

"We're looking forward to 770 AM KTTH as our new home of Sonics basketball," Sonics CEO Wally Walker said in a statement. "KTTH and its six sister stations align the Sonics with our ticket buyers and listening-audience demographics."

"I've had a longstanding relationship with KJR and played a part in it becoming the Sonics' flagship station," he said in a statement. "I started broadcasting Sonics games at KJR with Bob Blackburn in August of 1987, and although it's a tough decision to part ... the partnership with KTTH is favorable to the Sonics from a business standpoint."

Fans of the Sonics wanting to hear Calabro will have to tune into FSN next season.

"We are excited to have Seattle's best play-by-play announcer nearly exclusively on FSN," vice president and GM Mark Shuken said. "We will market our broadcasts as such."